


Of Paintings, Pianos and Putting Things Together

by BlackandBlueMagpie



Series: Wonderful One plus One [5]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-28
Updated: 2013-03-28
Packaged: 2017-12-06 19:39:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/739368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackandBlueMagpie/pseuds/BlackandBlueMagpie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which there is an Art Gallery, and a Piano and Courfeyrac makes a proclamation</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Paintings, Pianos and Putting Things Together

Grantaire gets Jehans address from Courfeyrac, and therefore spends the whole time walking there praying he won’t look like a creepy stalker. The through road is just as Courf describes, and reassures him – he can see Jehan living here. When he knocks on the door there’s no answer at first, though the letterbox tells him that a Jean Prouvarie lives here. He tries again and after a series of ‘alright, alright’ and rattling of keys the door is opened by a short lady, greying hair pulled back in a ponytail and chalk smudged across her cheek.  
“Yes?” The enquiry is short, and he suspects he’s interrupted her mid flow.  
“Very sorry, I’m looking for Jehan and, well there isn't a doorbell…”  
“Oh, the flowery kid who rents on the second floor. Who are you?”  
“I-I’m his friend. Grantaire.” It probably won’t mean anything but it’s worth a shot and he sees the small recognition in her pale eyes.  
“Oh! Grantaire, yes he’s mentioned you. I’m his landlady, Elinore. Please come in. His door’s the one on your right as you go up the stairs. If he’s not there he might be in the garden, he likes it out there to think he says. If you’ll excuse me, I’m in the middle of a portrait…”  
“Of course, I’m sorry to have interrupted the zone.” Grantaire nods and heads up the stairs. Knocking gives no results, and after standing there awkwardly for a few minutes gives up and heads downstairs. He finds the door to the garden soon enough, beneath the stairs and leading out to a mossy path. The garden is overgrown, in a strangely controlled manner. There are flower beds with only greenery left, though a few specks on colour have poked their way through. He walks a little further, finding a trellis draped in honeysuckle and beyond a small door buried in the vines. He decides quickly that there’s no other option but to peer through the glass, and gives a small rap at the door upon seeing the poet through the dust. Jehan gives a start, catching the plant pot that he’s knocked with his elbow. Grantaire waves bashfully, opening the door with a small ‘hi.’  
“Grantaire, what are you doing here?” Jehan’s lining the pots back up now, stacking the unfilled ones to the side and re-ordering the various packets that were on the bench. He followed Grantaire’s gaze. “It’s a hobby, the greenhouse has been here for a while and Elinore said I could use it, seeing as no one else did.” The place is filled with flowers, in various sized pots and in different states of growth. There’s some crocuses in the corner, daffodils lined up in a trough and hyacinths trying to escape from a metal bucket. An easel – painted blue – stands neglected in the corner. “So, why are you here?”  
Grantaire blinks back into life.  
“There’s a party, this Friday in fact. I wondered if you wanted to come. It should be a laugh. Figuratively speaking. It’s an art gallery open evening, and I kind of need to go and it’d be nice to have you company?”  
“What kind of art?”  
“Classical? Mainly Victorian style stuff really, the pieces are on loan and from what I’ve seen they look really detailed and I thought you might like them.”  
“Well I can always go for imagining the stories that go with them… I think I’d like that.” Jehan pulls off his gardening gloves, stretching out his thin fingers. Grantaire grins. “How’d you get in anyway?”  
“Your… landlady?”  
“Oh! She’s great. I think you’d like her.”  
“You told her about me?” Grantaire smiles, because people don’t mention him, he’s not the friend people want their children to be bringing home and it’s stupid it means something so much to him but yet it does.  
“Of course, you’ve been really great. And you’re my friend, why wouldn’t I mention you?”  
“No reason… You’re close?”  
“Oh god she’s… Like a mother sounds too melodramatic and she’s not really motherly per-se just… She’s there and she invited me in when I moved to Paris and y’know it means something.”

~~~

When Grantaire mentioned the party he said it was an event for his art class, a museum after hours get together to browse the newest works, and that he thought Jehan might be interested in the new display. That was true, more or less. Sure he didn’t have to go along to the event, and he’d rather not have to wear a suit but it wasn’t a complete lie.  
As gestures go it’s pretty impressive, it’s poetic and just a little bit cheesy. He guesses it also allows for an escape clause, a reason for Courfeyrac to be there if things should not go as expected.  
He meets Jehan at 6.30, both in suit jackets though Grantaire’s opted to go sans-tie and Jehan appears to be wearing a cravat. They talk about mundane things, staying away from topics they’ve learnt to avoid for the sake of both of them.  
They gallery isn’t too far away and they arrive as the gathering reaches full swing. The place is full, but in a way that it doesn’t seem too cramped. Ladies and their partners drift by, chatting about the works and a waiter brings across a tray of drinks as they stand trying to get their bearings.  
The first person they run into, almost literally, is Combeferre, standing admiring a Greek statue in the main room of the complex.  
“I didn’t know you liked art.” Jehan takes the place on his right to read the sign, Combeferre pushes his glassed back up his nose.  
“No, I rather enjoy admiring the pieces. Usually when it’s quieter that it is now.” Grantaire has more than once found Combeferre in some obscure gallery at all hours, sitting on a bench or gazing at his surroundings. Usually Grantaire should be sketching the painting, but ends up chatting to Combeferre, or sitting in silence hands drawing out strands of hair as they fall over glasses and hands as they turn pages. “I believe Feuilly is around somewhere, though he failed to persuade Bahorel to join him.”  
“Probably the suit that put him off.” Grantaire snorts.  
There’s a song drifting from one of the rooms, I piece he thinks may come from Liszt, but he wouldn’t put money on it. It builds and falls as they move through the maze and browse paintings, shifting from classical to contemporary with ease. Grantaire has always envied Courfeyrac’s ability to play piano, seeming to be able to grasp pieces within seconds of reading them and even simply dancing his fingers along keys sounds impressive.  
Jehan stares at each picture with unique fascination, giving each his full attention before he moves on to the next. His eyes are searching, lighting up when he finds particular details and his mouth curls in childlike excitement.  
Grantaire can see why Courf’s fallen for him. Jehan has an ethereal quality in the way he moves, in his eyes and his appearance – all thin fingers and long legs and he looks like he hasn’t quite grown into his body still. He looks maybe like a willow, delicate but Grantaire knows in the end he’s anything but. He can bend in the wind, sway and get scraped up but he won’t break. Though sometimes he’s like a flower, needing support and a shoulder to cry on, but yet he has the resilience of snowdrops beneath bitter winter’s mornings. He’s not sure where Jehan gets it from, and he envies it yes, but he almost fears to ask. Grantaire always says he doesn’t need pity. Jehan says he doesn’t need to be fixed.  
“Who’s playing piano?” Jehan asks suddenly, interrupting his thoughts. Grantaire shifts his eyes from where he’d been studying Jehan.  
“Why don’t we go and find out?”

~~~ 

Courfeyrac has a feeling he might be crazy.  
After running off from Jehan, not talking to him for a week – purposely avoiding him even – just to avoid the inevitable question that would come to his mind, there was no reason the poet would want to see him again.  
He wasn’t even sure why the idea scared him so much. He’d been with people before, sure but this was different. It was nice, it was fun, he relaxed and didn’t feel he had to entertain. Jehan made him happy, he gave him butterflies and made him laugh and he was so fascinating with his quirks and poetry through his fingers and flowers in his hair.  
And here he was, falling for him.  
His fingers glide across The Maiden and the Nightingale without really thinking, eyes glancing around the room intermittently in search for a mop of dark hair or a ribbon-ed braid.  
He almost misses a note when he spots a deep purple ribbon, twined into blond hair and matching the cravat just beneath. Jehan spots him soon after, smile levelling to neutral as he tugs on Grantaire’s arm. Courf fears for a moment he might leave, and transitions into the song that’s the whole reason he’s here.  
Grantaire raises an eyebrow at him slightly, his hand over Jehan’s on his arm and Courf almost feels jealous – suppressing it quickly because, even though Jehan is irresistible Grantaire has fallen for Enjolras too hard to even look at anyone else in that way.  
Jehan’s brow furrows slightly in a frown, watching him intently with eyes that are greyer in this light.  
 _Love is ended before it’s begun._  
Courf doesn’t dare sing the words but he whispers them to keys, keeping his eyes down. He sense rather than sees Jehan step forward, moving closer to the piano as Courf continues watching keys rise and fall beneath his fingertips. He dares to glance up.  
“And the moment I can feel that you feel that way too, is when I fall in love with you.”  
Jehan’s frown moves to wide eyes with a silent gasp, and Courf scarcely plays the next note before he steps back, blinks, opens his mouth in a shaky breath and then flees into the crowd. Grantaire watches him go, looking back to Courf with a look of sympathy.  
“And the moment I can feel that you feel that way too, is when I fall in love with you.”  
The words barely make it between his lips, a near silent admission to himself as to what this is really, and why this hurts so much and why he wishes he could leave the piano behind and cry into his pillow. But he can’t, and the audience applauds without a clue as to what has just passed and Courf keeps his head low so he can press his lips together and pretend he’s happy with their praise.  
~~~ Jehan finds himself sitting on a bench. He’s not even sure how he got here, not really. He had fled blindly through the crowds until he found a quiet spot where he can press the heels of his hands against his eyes and calm his breaths.  
When he raises his eyes, and the stars clear he simply sits and stares.  
The painting in front of him looks somewhat out of place, a country garden scene amongst hunting and battles. He notices nothing else about it, not the ladies in their frocks perched on picnic rugs, nor the men in tall hats, servants pouring tea in black and white, all framed in flowers of all hues, vines and blossoms. His eyes are a blur, fingers still running over his face as if to make sure he’s still there.  
His hand dips behind his shirt, tugs on the chain his find there and pulls out the necklace. The Hamsa had been given to him by his grandparents after they went travelling, it hasn’t left him since. He presses it to his lips in a gesture more habitual that symbolic and watches the floor.  
This is stupid. The song probably wasn’t even meant for him, it was just a piece Courf happened to play at the time he appeared. That was it. It didn’t mean anything surely.  
And yet it makes sense that it does. Grantaire bringing him here, not mentioning that Courf was playing – because there was no way he wouldn’t know. And if that was true then well…  
Jehan smiles a little.  
In some way he knows what this means, the words Courf was so scared to say even to keys had brought him here because he knew they were true. They had come as a surprise, scared him in part but the more he thinks the more that fear drains away and is replaced with nervousness and yet he’s happy. He let out a shaky breath, puffing out his cheeks.

~~~

“May I?” Courfs hand pause from where they’re about to begin the next piece at the quiet voice. He blinks once, turning slowly. Jehan is standing behind him, hands clasped in front of him and a nervous smile turning up his features. He bites his lip as Courf processes it.  
“O-Of course.” He shifts to the side, allowing Jehan to sit next to him. The seat is small; their legs brush and knock together as he sits. He didn’t know Jehan played the piano – Jehan will later admit he only knows ‘Let’s do it’ due to a school play – and so he watches in fascination as Jehan spreads out his fingers and places them against the ivories.  
It takes him three bars to recognise the song and a grin spreads across his face and he knows how ridiculous it must look but he can’t see anyone else’s face except Jehans and he concentrates on the keys with intensity, trying to get it just perfect. He lets out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob as Jehan glances up. Then his takes Jehan’s face in his hands and kisses him squarely on the lips and Jehan misses a note and they don’t pull apart until someone wolf whistles.  
Jehan’s blushing and Courf can’t stop grinning like an idiot but they break apart with promises to meet shortly.  
The time can’t go quickly enough, Jehan remains close by, leaning on his hands and watching intently. He doesn’t have paper but words appear on his hands, under rolled sleeves and track out his thoughts. Courf finishes the evening with ‘I can’t help falling in Love with you’ and takes a bow before taking Jehan’s hand and practically running out onto the balcony to find out exactly what he meant and if it's what he really thinks it is and exactly how he himself feels. But when he gets out the words escape him.  
“I was supposed to do that.” He murmurs.  
“You did, I just didn’t realise how you felt and it surprised me.” Jehan sits on the railing in front of him. “I’m sorry I snapped at you.”  
“I’m sorry I got freaked out, and hurt you. I think owe Grantaire one too.” He chews on his lip, unable to meet Jehan’s eyes for a moment “I- I don’t do this. Not usually. But I want to, I want to be with you and look after you if you need looking after and… Love you.” Jehan places a finger against his lips, and he’s smiling and his voice is soft.  
“Only if you let me do that for you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Jehan only knows Lets Do It (Lets Fall In Love) because of a school play where he was the only one who had ever touched a piano before.  
> Lyrics come from When I fall in Love by Nat King Cole


End file.
